


(i don't know how not to love you)

by magicandlight



Series: The States [17]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, Salem!, Sam Adrien and Foster are all cinnamon rolls, mostly fluff but with a dash of angst mixed throughout, never explicitly says what the incident was but it's pretty obvious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-23 06:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14929331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicandlight/pseuds/magicandlight
Summary: Samantha is clearly Foster's favorite. He clings to her, and Samantha lets him. She never snaps at him for pulling on her skirt or for waking her up with a nightmare.Alfred isn't sure what to make of it.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> REWRITE OF THE MAME THING!
> 
>  
> 
> *Warnings for non-explicit implied and referenced sexual assault.

**June 9, 1745- VA**  
Samantha is clearly Foster's favorite. He clings to her, and Samantha _lets_  him. She never snaps at him for pulling on her skirt or for waking her up with a nightmare.

Alfred isn't sure what to make of it. 

 **August 12, 1745- VA**  
"Let's go climb trees." Foster pulls on her skirts, trying to tug her outside.

Sam bites her lip. "I don't climb trees."

He stops, horrified. "Never?"

"Not for a very long time."

Foster seems to think about this before he nods. "Come on, I'll show you how."

Sam nearly falls from the sudden yank on her wrist. "Foster-"

"Please?"

Sam caves when he gives her the puppy dog eyes. "Alright."

 **November 5, 1747- VA**  
Foster laughs as Samantha flushes crimson.

All he had done was kiss her on the cheek, and she had blushed.

Sam silently curses the Puritans.

 **May 12, 1748- VA**  
Foster is silent as he pads down the hall.

He opens the third door on the left, the one with the mayflowers painted on it.

"Sammy?"

Samantha is asleep, but the tabby cat sleeping beside her isn't.

The cat pokes its head up from where it's tucked against Samantha's chest. And meows. Loudly.

Samantha startles, almost falling off of the bed. She blinks when she catches sight of the boy half-hiding behind her door.

"Foster?"

"J'ai eu un mauvais rêve." He mutters. Samantha quickly translates it in her head.  _I had a bad dream._

Samantha moves over to lay against the wall. Foster climbs into her bed, tucking his body up against hers and waiting as she pulls the quilts tighter around them.

Foster smiles when she wraps her arms around him. Nothing bad can happen to him like this.

He whispers a goodnight, already half asleep, staying awake long enough to hear Sam say it back.

 **September 2, 1748- VA**  
Foster can't help his surprise when Sam gives him her stuffed bear.

He bites his lip as he reflexively holds it closer. "But I thought Al gave it to you?"

Sam shrugs like it's nothing, like the bear hadn't had the spot of honor on her bed for half a decade. "And now I'm giving it to you."

 **November 23, 1748- VA**  
Samantha listens carefully to the sound of small feet padding down the hall, and then her door creaking open.

Foster had been having bad dreams all week, and coming to her all week. She'd just started to stay up and wait for him.

She keeps her eyes closed as Foster climbs up and crawls into her bed.

_Poke. Poke. Pokepokepoke._

"Foster, I'm awake. Stop poking me."

"Je suis désolé." He mutters. His feet touch her leg and she flinches back.

"You're  _cold_." She tells him when he gets that sad puppy look on his face.

"Sorry."

"Have another nightmare?"

Foster nods, cuddling closer to her chest. She lets him, even after his bony elbows dig into her stomach.

"Can you sing a lullaby, Sammy?"

That was... new. He'd never asked her to sing before.

Slowly, hesitantly, she begins to sing softly.

Foster yawns, nuzzling against her neck. "You sing pretty."

In the dark, Sam beams.

 **January 28, 1750- VA**  
When Sam gets angry, it's awful.

Hell for everyone involved, except her siblings. Except for Foster, especially.

Foster is her soft spot.

Alfred watches, remembers to push Foster towards Sam when she gets upset.

 **May 7, 1753- VA**  
"You always blush." Foster blurts out. "Every time someone hugs you or kisses your cheek or anything. Why?"

Sam nearly falls out of the apple tree in surprise at his sudden words, and maybe the best time to bring this up wasn't when they were trying to get at the good apples on the top branches.

She grabs at the trunk to steady herself before she looks over at him.

She chews on her lip, thinking of the best way to explain this. "You know how I grew up with the Puritans?"

She waits until Foster nods to continue. "Well, they didn't show a lot of affection. I'm not used to hugging or kissing or anything, so I always blush."

 **March 3, 1757- VA**  
Foster sits on the edge of Sam's bed and watches her pack silently.

He wasn't sure what he'd do when Sam was gone- all the way in  _Boston_.

Logically, he realized that now that Sam was old enough to take care of herself, of course she'd prefer to be with her own people.

No matter how much logic he tried to drown it out with, it still felt like Sam was leaving  _him_.

 **March 4, 1757- VA**  
"He thinks you're abandoning him." Adam helpfully points out when he notices his sister staring into space.

Sam's head snaps over so fast Adam winces. "What?"

"Foster. Take a page out of Gin's book and ask if he wants to come with you."

Sam doesn't say anything, but she's clearly thinking about it, so Adam smiles.

 **March 5, 1757- VA**  
Sam settles down beside him, tucking her feet into a cross-legged position.

Foster ignores her, leaning back against the tree.

After several uncomfortably silent minutes, Sam sighs.

"Do you want to come to Boston with me?"

 **June 7, 1757- Boston, MA**  
It's weird, at first, living with Sam.

Sam gets up crazy early but she's so completely silent she's never managed to wake him up, even when she cooks or goes out.

Slowly, Foster adjusts to the quiet that was non-existent in Virginia, to the sounds of the city, to the smell of the harbor and the ocean beyond it.

One day they go grocery shopping together and Foster says  _race you home_  and Sam beams at him.

 **August 14, 1765- Boston, MA**  
Sam is sobbing from the pain, and Foster is panicking. Blood is spreading across the shoulders of Sam's shirt, so he starts to peel it away.

He doesn't realize when he slips into French- too busy trying to press Sam's balled-up shirt against the slash over her shoulders. Blood drips down her back, staining her stays.

He'd had and seen his fair share of personification wounds, marks left by drought or sickness or war, but this-

This was a bloody whip-mark drawn over Sam's skinny shoulders.

(Later, the only thing Sam asks him for is to stay home. To not get involved in this rebellion. Sam rarely asks him for anything, so he agrees without hesitation.)

 **** **October 4, 1770- Boston, MA**  
He's scared of what rebellion means for all of them and at the end of his rope when he goes to Sam that night.

She should tell him they're both too old for this, but instead, she lifts up the quilt so he can climb into her bed.

Sam says nothing about the way he's shaking from his latest nightmare, and in turn, he doesn't ask her about her scars when she turns onto her back and winces softly.

 **May, 1774- Boston, MA**  
Sam is barely conscious these days, the rebellion taking its physical toll on her.

Foster sleeps curled beside her, head on her chest to listen to the steady beat of her heart.

 **June 14, 1775- Providence, RI**  
Boston is occupied, so they crash at Adam's, which is fine up until the morning he wakes up and Sam and her uniform are gone.

When she comes back, she looks so  _tired_ , and that is when he decides he's going to fight too.

 **June 28, 1776- Sullivan's Island, SC**  
Sam feels the presence of another personification and all she can think is  _no no no_  as she turns.

Sam yanks the soldier down by the lapels of his jacket.

"What the hell are you doing, Foster?"

"Fighting against the British?"

Sam's lips are pressed together tightly, and if Foster was more observant, he might've noticed the glimmer of fear in her eyes.

"No, you're not. Go home."

If Sam had been looking closer, she might've noticed the stubbornness in his eyes.

"I'm not going home. I'm not a coward, and I'm not a child, Sam."

Sam looks at him ( _up at him, really, he's taller than her now, when did that happen?_ ) She knows she won't be able to convince him to go home.

Foster blinks as something is dropped over his head. "Don't get yourself killed, kid." Is all Sam says before she jogs away.

Foster pulls at the thing around his neck, and finds himself staring at a delicate cross pendant on a necklace.

He's never seen Sam without it.

 **November 17, 1781- Boston, MA**  
He could have found somewhere in his own territory after the war, but he likes Boston. He likes staying with Sam.

 **May, 1790- PA**  
Sam lets him grab the star with her.

Half of her star is in Foster's hands. _Half of her statehood is in his hands_.

It's heavier than he expected, and he swallows thickly when Sam smiles at him.

(When they get home, Sam settles it onto a shelf in the living room and pins their stripes up with it. Foster says _why_  and Sam gives him an odd look and just says  _because_.)

 **1812- PA**  
When the next war begins, Foster helps cut Sam's hair short and she fixes the tears in his uniform.

Sometimes, they see each other at battles and Sam will flash a smile at him.

Sometimes, the only thing that says there's another state at the battles is the hollowing feeling of a personification dying and Foster grips the cross pendant around his throat a little tighter.

 **February, 1815- PA**  
They win the war, sure, but Abby's blind.

Abigail is blind, Ginny is putting on a brave face, and they've got new territory every year, and meanwhile the North and South keep bickering about everything.

 **November 12, 1818- Boston, MA**  
_I love her_ , Foster realizes as he watches Sam laugh. _I'm_ _in_ _love_ _with_ _her._

The thought is  _terrifying_.

 **January 7, 1819- Boston, MA**  
Foster starts questioning everything after the realization. Everything. Every touch, gesture, word. He cuts down on ruffling her hair and the unnecessary touches.

He stops spending the majority of his time with her. He takes a stack of books and holes up in his room and learns Irish Gaelic to ease the boredom. Later, he learns Scottish Gaelic. After that, he learns German.

 **March 13, 1819- Boston, MA**  
Sam isn't stupid.

She knows he's ignoring her. Avoiding her.

But she doesn't know  _why_. Of course she'd think it was because of his territory status.

He can't say she's wrong- she is, mostly- so he snaps at her to leave it alone.

And that is the day everything starts going to hell.

 **March 8, 1820- Boston, MA**  
March 8th is the breaking point.

There was an argument, something about the War of 1812 and how she had failed to provide protection that escalates into something about his status as a territory and keeps escalating until Foster is hurling  _you're just like England_  across the room.

Sam freezes in place.

Foster immediately knows he's gone too far.

Sam has always been terrified of becoming like England- cold and harsh. She already looked like him. She didn't want to be like the man who'd tried to tax them dry and told Alfred he was nothing and tried to rip independence from them.

Sam looks horrified.

"I-"

"Get out." There is no waver in her voice, no cracks.

"Sam-"

" _DON'T._ You made it perfectly clear how you feel about me  _so get OUT_!" She looks up at him, and Foster has never been more sorry in his life.

He leaves without a word.

(He doesn't hear how sobs echo through the house once he has left.)

 **March 11, 1820- NS**  
Foster crashes with Cecilia because he can't face Adam and Connie after the argument.

When Alfred approaches Foster and offers up statehood, he says yes.

 **March 15, 1820**  
Sam doesn't come to his statehood ceremony. Matthew does, Cecilia does, and a few other provinces come, but not Sam.

Sam hides away in New York with Brooke and Nicky and Adrien and gets drunk for the first time in years.

 **April 23, 1820- Boston, MA**  
Sam goes home at the end of March and finds that Foster's already gotten his stuff.

She boxes up whatever's left and shoves it in the attic and firmly shuts the door to his old room.

 **May 2, 1821- Boston, MA**  
The house is too quiet, so Sam never spends too long in it.

She goes out more. She goes home with men who don't remember her name and tries to cope with a sibling relationship in tatters.

 **July 30, 1821- Boston, MA**  
Time goes faster when you're drunk half the time.

Sam goes to meetings and doesn't wince or flinch away from the arguments with Foster over anything and everything.

She goes home. She goes somewhere they don't know her name and drinks until her healing factor gives out enough to get drunk and then finds someone who doesn't think twice about how young or sad or tired she looks.

Rinse. Repeat.

 **February 13, 1822- MA**  
Adam hugs her when he leaves. "Be safe, goodbye Sam!"

Sam rolls her eyes at the 'be safe'. "Bye Adam."

 **April 14, 1822- MA**  
Their healing factors give them higher tolerances for everything, but when it's drowned in alcohol, it gives out.

Sam doesn't know about the drugs in her drink until they're sapping her fight and senses and strength.

By then it's too late.

*

She stays on the floor for a long time after.

She can feel that immortal grace in her veins fighting, trying to burn through whatever was in her system, trying to fix what was wrong.

It's working too slowly. Too much damage and too much alcohol. It'd have been kinder to kill her. And least she'd heal faster that way.

When she finally gets up, blood drips down her face and her chest and everything hurts and her hands shake as she assesses her clothes.

Her corset is done for, and her petticoats are ripped, but her dress and her cloak are relatively intact and that's all that matters right now.

Sam looks at her own her hands and almost throws up. They're bloody and shaking and she gripped her cross so tight it cut into her hand.

She finally finds her way out of the dusty back room. She pulls her hood up and stumbles outside. Her hands stop shaking as she finds her horse.

May whinnies- probably smells all the blood- but she calms down enough when Sam holds her head and looks in her eyes.

 _Connie_ , Sam thinks, and prepares for pain as she struggles up into the saddle.  _Connie could help._

 **June 15, 1822- Baltimore, MD**  
Foster doesn't worry when Sam doesn't show up to the yearly state meeting.

Not at all. ( _Maybe a little._ )

After the second day of the meeting, he catches a few words exchanged between Adam and Connie.

- _Not coming- tell her I said that would you?- probably on the couch- couldn't handle it?_

He walks away.

(Sam spends the day staring at Connie's floor, on the couch, wrapped in all the blankets she can find. She never feels warm anymore.)

 **June 16, 1822- Baltimore, MD**  
On the last day of the meeting, Connie slaps Foster across the face for an off-hand remark about Sam.

 **June 30, 1822- CT**  
Sam prods at the cross tattoo on her ribs and resolves to let her healing factor destroy it, because she'll be damned if she ever refreshes the ink on it.

 **November 8, 1822- Newark, NJ**  
Foster was slightly more worried when Sam didn't show up for the East Coast meeting.

They had been doing these since 1800, and Sam had never missed a single one.

A look from Connie kept him from saying anything.

 **November 30, 1822- Boston, MA**  
Sam goes home at the end of November.

She digs Foster's hockey sticks out of the attic and sleeps with one next to her.

She didn't go to Thanksgiving.

She doesn't go to Christmas. She lets Connie take the presents and make excuses.

She finds a way to hold herself together well enough that everyone stops asking what's wrong.

And then she sets her teeth and decides she's going to the next state meeting no matter what because she has a responsibility to her people no matter what her personal issues are.

 **October 20, 1823** **-** **Dover, D** **E**  
The first thing out of America's mouth is a question. "Are you alright?"

Sam smiles, and lies gracefully. "Of course. Why?"

"You're looking a little skinny."

"I was sick a few weeks ago. A bug was going around Boston. I'll be fine." She tells him and smiles.

Alfred's attention is then captured by the cat on her shoulder. He rubs between its ears gently. "Aren't you a cutie?"

"His name's Salem." She tells him, and ignores the distinct satisfaction she's getting from her familiar.   
\---------------  
Foster can't stop the relief he feels when he sees Sam across the room.

She fights with him over policy later, and he brushes aside his worries, because Sam's here, she's fighting with him, she's normal, she's fine.


	2. two

**December 11, 1823- PA**  
Sam had agreed to come down early since she hadn't made it to Christmas or Thanksgiving last year, and since she missed this year's Thanksgiving too.

She's already regretting it.

Sure, she knew, logically, that none of her brothers would ever even think of hurting her like that, but that didn't change the fact that the majority of them were much bigger and stronger than her, and her brain saw  _threat_  before it saw  _family_.

The stress is getting to her.   
\------  
When she'd escaped out onto the side porch, she hadn't expected to catch Caleb with a lit cigarette in his mouth.

His eyes widen almost comically. "Don't tell Dad." He blurts.

Sam snorts. "Do I look like Elizabeth? Give me one."

"What?"

"I said give me a cigarette."

"You smoke?"

"I'm about to."

She had had a cigarette before- once on a battlefield in the South, once 'cause she got curious up in Boston. Foster had seen her do it once, had screamed at her and she'd never smoked after that.

She puts the cigarette in her mouth and takes a drag.

Exhales.

She doesn't cough. Caleb looks a little impressed.

 **December 15, 1823- PA**  
Foster is not a morning person.

(That was always Sam, up before the sun, up before the stupid chirpy birds.)

Which is why he curses like a sailor when he falls out of bed at five in the morning and can't get back to sleep afterward before he forces himself downstairs to raid the coffee.  
\------  
Foster blinks.

He'd thought most of newer kids were intimidated by the Originals.

But there is Caleb, sitting on the porch railing laughing at something Sam has said.

Sam doesn't smile, lifting a cigarette to her mouth, taking a drag, exhaling the smoke.

Foster's eyes widen. Before he can stop himself, he's marching out and addressing her. "I thought you didn't smoke." It's accusing and angry and something he would have said before. He regrets it immediately.

Sam looks at him blankly- no trace of emotion. "I guess there's a lot we don't know about each other."

Foster flinches away from that blankness before he can stop it.

Sam snubs out her cigarette, tossing it in the trash as she passes.

 **January 17, 1824- Jersey City, NJ**  
Brooke had agreed to keep an eye out, to make sure Sam was never in any danger, but Sam knew she wasn't happy.

Brooke was one of the three people (four if you count Salem) who knew what had happened  _that_  April, and she didn't exactly approve of Sam's plans.

Brooke's face had crumpled when Sam had plainly told her that to build an immunity to poison, you had to expose yourself to it over time. (Brooke doesn't point out that fear of half the human race isn't comparable to arsenic.)

Sam had refused to listen to Brooke's arguments, and Brooke could never turn her back despite the many false-starts where Sam comes home crying because something made her flashback.

Eventually, Brooke stops trying to tell her it's a bad idea.

 **March 30, 1824- New York, NY**  
The first time she sleeps with someone after the incident, she has to leave immediately after.

By the time she makes her way back to Brooke's apartment, her hands are shaking and she's on the verge of a panic attack.

Brooke doesn't answer the door. Nicky does, but he calls for Brooke the second she looks at him with too-wide green eyes.

Brooke is there in an instant, pulling her into the bathroom and shutting the door and giving her the security she needs to break down.

Then she waits, silently propped up against the bathtub, and Sam wonders what the fuck Brooke had seen that she could accept this as normal, no questions asked.

She says as much out loud.

Brooke just laughs.

 **April 21, 1826- Philadelphia, PA**  
There's another meeting.

Alfred ruffles her hair and calls her Samantha (no one has really called her Samantha since before the Revolution, but Alfred does when he's in one of his moods or when she makes him upset)

It makes it very hard to lie to him. But she will do it, even though it feels a little like betrayal.

( _You're more like Alfred than Arthur_ , Prussia had told her,  _But sometimes, you're just like Arthur. Just like an empire._  Sam had scoffed.  _What does that mean?_  Prussia's red eyes had so very steadily gazed at her as he'd said _You don't have mercy in your bones. You will do what it takes for you and yours to survive, no matter the cost._ )

It's very hard to tell Alfred something she knows will make him upset. To her, he will always be the man she had met and put on a pedestal when she was a child. Disappointing him is unthinkable.

So Sam smiles, and laughs, and lies through her teeth.

 **May 7, 1824- New York, NY**  
Brooke folds Sam seamlessly into her friendship with Nicky and Adrien.

Sam has a lot of late night conversations with Brooke- Brooke has her insomnia and Sam has her nightmares. They share secrets over cigarettes and too much coffee- Sam chainsmoking until her hands stop shaking, Brooke leaving them to burn away more often than not.

Brooke talks most of the time- lack of sleep erases her brain-to-mouth filter, apparently. She tells Sam about Philip, about the ring she wears on a chain around her neck when it gets hard to breathe, about Alexander, about the time before Alfred, about the men who would come hunting in the night for children no one would miss, about what happened to those men. Sam eventually offers up her own truths- the harsh reality of the Puritans, the way magic feels, and then one day the startling fact that if it wasn't for her immortality she would have turned a knife to herself after the incident- the only reason she didn't was because she would just wake up again after, and nothing would have changed except how closely her siblings watched after her.

Brooke accepts this without protest. Sam wonders if Brooke had ever looked at the graves of the only men she had loved in the romantic sense and thought about the weight of immortality too.

It's not quite healing, but it's close.

 **July 23, 1825- New York, NY**  
Sam's probably had too much rum when Adrien beats them all in cards. Brooke flicks his nose when he smirks at her.

Before, Sam had always been action before thought, and that hasn't changed despite the incident. At that moment, she's thinking about how Adrien had once bought her ginger ale because he knew she didn't like drinking. She's thinking about how he likes her, but he's never pushed. She's thinking about how he's nice and sweet and then she kisses him.

Adrien kisses back.

 **July 24, 1825- New York, NY**  
Adrien spends the next day grinning like an idiot and Sam only wants to stab him a little and that's probably just the hangover talking anyway.

He smiles softly at her that afternoon and holds her hand. Nicky has the decency to not question it and pinches Brooke when she opens her mouth.

Sam forgets to be afraid that day.

 **August 17, 1825- Boston, MA**  
Adrien is an oddity in the fact that he _asks_. He asks if he can hold her hand, if he can kiss her, if he can touch her.

At first, she thinks it's because Brooke had hinted to him about her, but that doesn't explain the occasional quick  _yes/no_ s to both Nicky and Brooke.

Sam asks Brooke, and all the other girl will give her is that the three of them have an understanding about physical contact. Sam asks why and Brooke's eyes get that steely gleam- the one she remembered from the first time Alfred saw the whip-marks on her shoulders, from Brooke breaking through the haze of that first week to tell her she was going to have to rebreak her arm to set it properly.

Brooke never does tell her why Adrien feels the need to ask before he reaches out to touch.

 **September 8, 1826- Montreal, Quebec**  
They've been dating for a year, and they can't get beyond kissing, and Sam is so incredibly frustrated with herself.

The first time they had tried, she had started crying.

She doesn't know why- she had initiated it, she had had sex  _after_  before, and it wasn't like this was the first time her and Adrien had been all over each other- except the last time, they hadn't gotten much further than her hands up Adrien's shirt and his hands on her thighs and practically grinding on each other (it was, at that point, that Nicky had interrupted and Adrien had screamed at him in French.)

She doesn't know why- she had initiated it, and Adrien had been nothing but gentle and loving yet she had started crying when he pulled her dress over her head.

It was ridiculous. It probably freaked Adrien out.  
\------  
Adrien is wracking his brain to figure out what he did wrong, because Sam's face is buried against his collarbone, and he can feel her tears.

One moment, he's kissing her stomach and pulling her dress over her head, and the next she's trembling and crying.

Crying girlfriends are never good. Hell, crying girls, in general, are never good. He had been around Brooke long enough that crying would result in her either complaining about ruined makeup and puffy eyes or embarrassment.

Adrien sits up, but Sam goes with him. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and he lets her cling to him as he brushes a gentle hand through her hair.

"Sam- Sam, whatever I did, I'm so-"

"There's no reason for you to be sorry." Sam's face is still pressed against his chest, but there is steel in her voice.

But no steel directed towards him.

"It isn't your fault I'm a mess." Sam finishes.

Adrien's eyes narrow as he looks down at her. "You're not a mess." He snaps.

Perhaps too harshly- Sam flinches.

She flinches, and something clicks into place. She flinches like Brooke does when she's startled awake. The way Nicky does everytime he hears  _to lie with another man is a sin_. The way Adrien used to at the sight of women selling themselves off on the edges of alleys.

Adrien smooths a hand over her hair. "You're not a mess." He repeats, softer.

Sam meets his eyes finally.

He brushes his thumb over her cheeks, wiping away her tears. "Can I kiss you?"

Sam nods, barely.

Adrien smirks as he presses a kiss to the tip of her nose.

It takes Sam a moment to comprehend what he just did.

She frowns at him. She is the one who leans in this time.

Adrien smiles when she kisses him.

 **November 2, 1826- Montreal, QC**  
Sam is feeling brave when she kisses Adrien that day.

It goes from sweet to passionate and lusty- her hands up Adrien shirt, his hands on her hips.

And then his hands are slipping under her own shirt, up to trace the edge of her stays.

Sam stiffens.  _Hands, the rip of stays tearing-_

Adrien's hands return to her hips, and don't move again.

 **November 20, 1826- PA**  
Adrien comes to Thanksgiving, and no one thinks any of it.

It helps that Brooke's room is next to hers, and both are towards the end of the hall, and so no one but Ginny across the hall notices that Adrien isn't sleeping in Brooke or Nicky's room, he's sleeping in hers.

(Brooke bribes Ginny into being quiet with an old sketch of a younger Sera and Sam makes a note to get her a very nice Christmas present.)

No one sees them kiss in the kitchen in the early morning, no one sees Adrien's hand on her thigh under the table, or how Sam smiles at him.  
\------  
Sam wakes up and smiles when she realizes Adrien has wound an arm around her in his sleep, pulling her against his chest.

She should feel hemmed in, trapped, but all she feels is secure.

 **December 3, 1826- Boston, MA**  
Adrien recognizes the anxiety in Sam's eyes when she's under him.

That, much like the flinching, is painfully familiar.

He'd be fine with the lack of sex, but Sam doesn't seem happy with it- not if the way she keeps initiating things and then getting frustrated when she can't go through with them.

So the next time she kisses him and pulls him to bed, he flips them. Rolls, pulling Sam with him until he's on his back and she's on top.

And Sam goes utterly still, flushing bright crimson. The blush spreads across her face and down under her chemise, and Adrien is distracted for a moment wondering how far the blush goes.

And there's panic in her eyes. Adrien sits up, leaning on his elbows. " _Chérie_ , what's wrong?"

"I've never..." The rest of the sentence is a mumble.

"You've never what?"

"I've never been on top."

Out of all the things she could have said, that's perhaps the most unexpected.

Adrien blinks, and then stares in shock. "Wait, you've never been on top? Never? Not once? You're like...  _two centuries_  old. No one's ever let you be on top?"

Sam shakes her head. He swore her blush just got darker.

"Jesus, you would think someone would have let the girl be in charge."

Sam lets out an embarrassed whine. "Adrien."

Adrien snaps out of it and meets her eyes. "Alright- I'll help you. You'll like it, and you get most of the control."  
\------  
Later, after, Sam presses close to him under the covers and Adrien wraps his arm around her shoulders.

She nuzzles her face against his collarbone and Adrien laughs.

Sam looks up at him like he's lost his damn mind. "That tickled." He mutters into her hair.

Sam smirks. "Really?"

Adrien wiggles away from her. "No-" and then he's laughing.

Laughing, because Sam is tracing feather light patterns on his sides and  _she knows how sensitive_ -

Sam screeches when he counterattacks, his hands skimming up her nightgown and over her sides.

Pretty soon, they're both laughing so hard they can't breathe and Sam has somehow found her way into his lap, straddling his hips.

"Love you." Sam tells him.

And it's the most natural thing in the world for Adrien to say, "I love you, too."

And Sam smiles at him and it's  _beautiful_.

 **December 4, 1826- Boston, MA**  
She almost tells him, that first morning after.

Adrien woke up before her, and he made breakfast, and she almost blurted it out, right then and there.

But that is not something you just blurt out.

And so it remains a secret for another day.

 **March 16, 1827- Augusta, ME**  
Cecilia perches on his kitchen island the day after his birthday and slowly eats a piece of the leftover cake and casually says, "Did you know Adrien and Sam are dating?"

Foster chokes on his coffee. "What?"

 **November, 1827- PA**  
Adrien comes for Thanksgiving again that year, but this time it isn't a secret that he's there with Sam. 

\------

Sam and Adrien are so casually affectionate, and Foster is so  _jealous_. 

And any hope Foster has carefully cultivated that maybe, maybe he doesn't like her like that anymore shatters.

 **July 7, 1828- Montreal, QC**  
Usually, Adrien waits until Sam makes the first move. Today, though-

"Do you want to go swimming? There's a lake not far away."

Sam blinks. "I don't have anything to wear."

Adrien shrugs. "That's alright."  
\------  
They turn it into a date- swimming and a picnic.

They spread out a blanket on the ground near the lake, and make a quick decision to eat before they swim.  
\------  
Sam laughs when she wades in, the water soaking her chemise quickly.

Adrien had casually mentioned skinny dipping and Sam had casually mentioned fish and bugs in unfortunate places. Adrien had shut up and kept his trousers on.

Adrien pulls her closer, far enough out that her feet can't touch the ground.

She wraps her arms around his bare shoulders as he treads water- which is slightly harder while holding Sam.

He presses his mouth to the hollow of her throat. "I love you."

Sam kisses his forehead. "Love you too."

He drew her legs around his waist and kissed her.

Really kissed her, not the little chaste peck he had given her this morning when they had woken up or the one he had pressed to her cheek during their picnic. Adrien kisses her, and it's not the neatest or the nicest kiss, but it's passionate.

Adrien's arms wrap around her, and he lifts her up, out of the water and begins to walk back to shore.

He lays her back against the picnic blanket, and she catches sight of his eyes- how wide his pupils are, the black swallowing up the blue.

"Sam- Sam, do you want- do you want this?" He asks, and she can feel his heartbeat hammering in his chest, pressed against hers.

Sam tangles her fingers in his hair, pulling him down to kiss him. "Yes.  _Yes_."  
\-----  
Sam's never really ever used the term 'make love' but that, that was exactly what that was.

And it is there, on that picnic basket lying with Adrien, that is the place she decides she has to tell him.

And that she will do it soon.

 **July 9, 1828- Montreal, QC**  
Sam is acting oddly, Adrien notices that day.

"What's wrong, chérie?"

Sam bites her lips. "I think you should sit down."

Adrien raises his eyes brows. "...Why?"

"I'm going to tell you something."

 **July 10, 1828- Montreal, QC**  
Sam tells him, and the next day, he offers up his own truths. 

He gives her his past, stories of what desperate starving children can be driven to offer up and suddenly  _yes or no?_ and Brooke's strange protectiveness makes so much sense in such an awful way. 

 **November, 1828- Boston, MA**  
Adrien's head is on her stomach, and Sam is carding her fingers through his hair sleepily.

"I think I'm going to tell Alfred. About what happened."

Adrien sits up to look at her.

He studies her for a moment, then he nods. "Do you want me to be there?"

Sam shakes her head. "I think I'll be alright."

 **December 25, 1828- PA**  
Foster doesn't recognize the cat, but he does recognize that if it stays in the kitchen it's gonna get stepped on. 

So he picks it up, and bats away the paw that tries to scratch him. 

He scratches behind it's ears as he checks its tags and freezes in realization. 

_**SALEM** _

_Fuck_ , he thinks, just as Sam appears. 

Her eyes brighten as she catches sight of the cat and she smiles. "You found him!"

She takes Salem from him and this close, Foster can count her freckles. "Thank you. He keeps getting lost."

 **January 7, 1829- PA**  
She chickens out three times before going to get Adam to come with her.

Sam reaches for her brother's hand as they step into Alfred's office, and he squeezes her hand reassuringly.

"Dad?" Sam calls, and Alfred looks up.

"Yes?"

"I have to tell you about 1822."

 **August 12, 1829- Boston, MA**  
Adrien had fixed some of her jagged edges, but the problem is that they're too broken for each other. 

They're too broken for each other. How are either of them supposed to anchor the other when Sam has god-awful nightmares that make Adrien wake up in that old panic and Adrien has the occasional panic attack and Sam can't do anything because to touch him is to make it worse. 

They're too broken to ever fix each other and they finally have to admit it. 

(They break up with a promise to not let this ruin the possibility of friendship and it might be for the best, but it still hurts.)

 **October 15, 1829- Raleigh, NC**  
 _Sam and Adrien broke up_ , someone whispers to him, and Foster immediately glances toward Sam. 

Sam, on the other end of the table, has her head down, and it's always hurt watching her hurt.

Adam hasn't sat down yet, and no one says anything as he slides into the seat next to Samantha.

_Go big or go home._

"So... do I have to go beat the hell out of Adrien or what?"

Sam lifts her head up slowly. "...What?"

"Heard you broke up. Do I get to beat Adrien up with my hockey stick or nah?"

"What- _Why would you_ -  ** _What?_** "

Foster rolls his eyes. "Do you want me to beat up Adrien? Didn't he break up with you or vice versa?"

" ** _No,_**  I don't want you to beat up Adrien. Why would you-  _oh_."

Foster smiles. Sam sighs tiredly and suddenly her talking to him does't seem like such a victory.

"It was a mutual thing, Foster." She finally tells him.

_Oh._

He wants to stay, to talk about something, anything, but the meeting is beginning and Adam wants his seat back. 

 **October 16, 1829- Raleigh, NC**  
The second day of the meeting, Foster brings her a cup of coffee the way she used to like it and she smiles at him and Foster thinks that even if she'll never love him like that, maybe at least she won't hate him. 

And he's okay with that. 


	3. three

**March 3, 1858- Philadelphia, PA**  
Alfred recalls them, and they all pretend not to know why.

It takes two years for the war to begin.

 **June 10, 1861- Philadelphia, PA**  
Kendall is yelling, and it takes Foster a minute to realize he's yelling at  _Sam_.

"What did you do?! Why would you think this was a good idea? They're still family,  _Massachusetts_." He spits out her state name like an insult.

Sam doesn't even blink. "I did what was necessary, and it is necessary because they are family, but they aren't our allies anymore."

Foster moves to stand beside Del, because she's usually the sensible one. "What's happening?"

"Sam warded the house," Del replies after a moment of hesitation. "Against the confederates."

 **August 1861**  
The first time Sam meets the Confederacy on a battlefield, he smiles at her.

And then: "Little Samantha, I would think Alfred wouldn't let you out all alone anymore, knowing what happened all those years ago."

With just one sentence, he's revealed that he  _knows_.

With one sentence, he gets in her head and shakes her so thoroughly that she doesn't speak to Del the whole way home.

 **September 12, 1861- Philadelphia, PA**  
The first time Salem deigns to acknowledge Foster, it's after Sam has worked herself into exhaustion.

It feels like taking liberties when he picks her up, but she can't sleep on the desk. He moves as quickly as he can without waking her up. Her bedroom door is a struggle, but he manages to open it eventually.

Salem is perched on the headboard, tail tucked close to his body, but he perks up when Foster opens the door and  _hisses_  when he sees Sam in his arms.

Foster settles Sam down, and goes for her boots because  _no, she can't sleep in those_  and Salem jumps off the headboard and bites his hand where it's on her bootlaces.

Foster yanks his hand back with muttered curses and Salem still stands protectively perched over Sam's legs and  _speaks_.

Foster never gets used to talking animals, no matter how many times he sees either of the Virginias' pastel familiars or Pax or Genevieve. Familiars didn't make sense and he preferred to stay away from them.

" _Don't touch her_." Salem growls, sharp canines showing. Foster holds his hands up in surrender.

"Just her boots. She can't sleep in them."

Salem's chartreuse eyes flicker the half-laced boot Foster had tried to get off, and he sits down beside Sam's legs.

It's as close to permission as he'll get.

He works as fast as possible and sets Sam's boots down on the floor by the foot of her bed and leaves.

He glances back long enough to see Salem settling down in the crook of Sam's arm, laying his head on her ribs like he's waiting for the rise and fall of her chest.

Perhaps familiars make a little sense, after all.

 **January 3, 1862- Philadelphia, PA**  
Sam watches the way Salem nips at Foster's ankles in bewilderment.

"Salem likes you." She says.

Foster raises an eyebrow. "He just tried to  _bite_  me."

She shakes her head. "No, that was just a nip. It was almost  _playful_."

Foster stares at her, and then at where Salem has sat down at her feet.

_The devil-cat likes him?_

**November 1862**  
The pull of another nation had drawn him from the main battle, and Foster freezes at the sight of Del with her face bloodied and unconscious, and Sam with her bayonet pressed against the Confederacy's neck, though it doesn't stop him from talking.  _Where was Cam? Shouldn't he be here?_

The Confederacy drawls out  _Samantha_  almost the same way Alfred had once, and Foster wants to break something.

Preferably Jackson's face.

Jackson flicks his gaze toward Foster and grins.

"Well, I wonder. Does he know about the so-called  _incident_ , Samantha?"

Foster frowns, looking over at Sam.

But Sam has gone pale with something like fear, but so much worse.  
\------  
Cam arrives seconds later, taking in his sisters and shooting Jackson within the same breath.

Sam is normal on the trip back home, and Foster forgets about the incident.

 **August 5, 1863- Philadelphia, PA**  
The territories remind Foster of himself, back when he was just another part of the Colony of Massachusetts.

He tries to keep them out of the war- pushing them from the room whenever another injured or dead state is brought in, keeping them from seeing Alfred when he's at his worst, making sure the talk about battles and strategy is kept to war room.

 **May, 1865- DC**  
The war is over and they have their siblings back.

But those are statehood stars on the table.

Sam might hold back Cam from physically fighting the congressmen, but she snarls at any of them that look her way.

Clearly, they had expected the Northern states to be approving.

Instead, Scott was frowning dangerously. Del's eyes had gone flat, and beside her, Will was glaring at any Congress member who dared make eye contact. Brooke was smiling like she already knew how she'd cut them apart. Michael's fingers were tangled into the ruff of the giant, beast of a dog he loved so dearly as it sensed the agitation and started to growl.

Sam waits until Monty has pulled Cam away before she speaks to the congressman.

"If you ever go through our belongings again, let alone take something, there will not be enough pieces of you left to bury." She smiles, all cheerfulness and none of her earlier snarl. "Pass that along, now, dear."

 **December 25, 1865**  
They don't have the closeness they'd had before the arguments and Foster's statehood, but they don't have the animosity they'd had before either.

Sam looks over at him Christmas morning and smiles, and for the first time, Foster  _hopes_. Maybe, someday, they can be more than this.

*********************

 **October 31, 1900- CA**  
Of course, with Foster's luck, it takes thirty-five years for someday to come around, but he's not going to complain.

Sam gets surprisingly somber when she drinks.

He finds her on the beach, half-full bottle of tequila set into the sand beside her.

She offers him the bottle when she sees him, and when he just raises his own bottle of beer, she shrugs and drinks straight from the bottle.

They sit in silence, watching the waves crash against the shore.

Sam takes another sip of tequila. Foster's never really seen her drink before. She'd been avoiding alcohol as long as he can remember- except for those early days in the Revolution, he doesn't think he's ever seen her drink.

"God, I was such an annoying sister."

Foster almost jumps at the startling suddenness of her words, but manages to compose himself last minute.

"You weren't." He corrects automatically.

Sam snorts. "Liar."

Foster looks at the ocean again. It's different from the one back home. Almost gentler, somehow. He continues, "You were overprotective. But you tried. You tried so fucking hard all the time, Sam."

Sam's silent for far too long, and he chances a glance at her.

She's turned halfway to face him, green eyes unreadable in the dark as she studies him.

Foster studies her too. Sam is typically unpredictable, but her Halloween costume is the same every year.

She's always a witch, but the only thing constant about her costume is that she's always got a pointed witch hat. Some years she wears a dress, some years she looks like she just threw on whatever black clothes she found in her closet first.

This year, her witch hat is halfway to falling off, and she put a little effort into the black button up and fitted pants.

She sets the tequila down in the sand.

"Hey, Foster?"

He snaps his gaze up to her dark eyes, and doesn't even get out a  _What?_ before Sam is leaning across the gap between them and pressing her mouth against his.

By the time he forces his brain to work enough to respond, she's pulled away, studying him with unreadable eyes again.

Foster swallows. "You- you are  _drunk_. I should go-"

Sam raises her eyebrows, unimpressed. She nudges the bottle of tequila with her foot. "This?  _Please_. Half a bottle of tequila won't get me drunk. I mean, I wish, but it takes something stronger these days. I'm perfectly sound of mind."

Foster blinks. If she wasn't drunk, then she had meant to do it.

Sam had meant to kiss him.

He swallows hard.  _Go big or go home_. He moved slowly, waiting for Sam to shove him back, and when she didn't, hesitantly kissed her.

Her lips are soft against his, and he worries about his own chapped and bitten ones for a moment before he loses the ability to care about anything other than kissing Sam.

Foster kisses Sam, and forgets about everything.

Including the tide.

" _Fuck_ , I thought the ocean was supposed to be  _warm_  here." Sam jerks away and to her feet, stepping away from the water and eyeing her soaked boots with distaste.

Foster's heart is racing, and he stays where he is, stunned into silence.

"Coming?"

Foster glances up towards Sam and her extended hand.

He takes it and stands up.

Hope is a very dangerous thing, but Foster thinks he likes it.

 **November 1, 1900- CA**  
Foster stirs early in the morning when a kiss is pressed onto his cheek, but falls back asleep when a gentle hand brushes through his hair.  
\------  
He wakes up to an empty bed and curses for a solid three minutes.

 **November 29, 1900- VA**  
It's Thanksgiving before Foster sees Sam again.

He grabs her wrist and drags her into the library and through the shelves before he has a chance to chicken out.

Sam leans idly against a shelf of Austen books and waits for him to speak.

Foster takes a deep breath. "Okay,  _what the fuck_ , Sam? What, did you just wake up after and regret it or something? Seriously, what the fuck-"

"I didn't regret it."

That stops him in his tracks.

Foster raises his eyebrows. "Then what?"

Sam looks away, and if he didn't know better, he'd say she looked unsure. "I'm better at running than staying."

He blinks. Her gaze flickers up to meet his. Perhaps unsure was the right word after all.

"But I didn't regret it." She repeats softly.

Her footsteps are almost silent when she leaves, and Foster leans against the bookshelf heavily.

 **December 20, 1900- VA**  
They hadn't spoken after the conversation in the library on Thanksgiving, but by the time the Christmas holidays roll around, Foster is tentatively hopeful.

But not this hopeful.

"What."

Sam leans against the window, and wasn't it fitting they were having this conversation in the library. This time it was on one of the window seats instead of back in the far bookshelves, but still. "I asked if I could kiss you, but it's okay if you don't want to."

Foster almost laughs.  _Don't want to_. He's been wanting to kiss her since before his statehood.

"Right now?" He asks instead.

Sam shrugs. "I doubt anyone's going to come looking for a children's book this late at night." She leans in slightly, and Foster closes the distance without hesitation.

In the early days of loving Sam, he'd thought about kissing her a lot.

None of those dreams came close to reality. He'd never imagined that her mouth would taste like the candy canes she had stolen off the tree, or that she would tangle her fingers in his hair to pull him closer.

She breaks the kiss to breathe, but stays close enough that her nose bumps against his.

"Can we sleep together? Just sleep." He clarifies quickly when she opens her eyes to look at him.

She nods, and lets him slip his hand into hers.  
\------  
It is both reminiscent of the nights Foster had climbed into her bed to ward off nightmares and not at the same time.

Back then, she had still been taller, if only by an inch. Back then, Foster had never tried to touch every scar within reach.

He brushes over the back of her neck, and his fingers touch the edge of one of the whip-scars, and she doesn't tell him there's no need to be so gentle, she can't feel much through the thick scar tissue etched over her shoulders.

He moves onto her arm, where there are only a few smaller scars dotted over the skin, and then to her hand. Foster traces over her callouses, and then over the scar on her palm.

He frowns at the scar on her palm. "What's this one?"

- _a cross on the floor, the chain glinting in her hand as she grabbed it, clutched so tightly in her hand that blood dripped down her forearm and onto the blood-covered floor as she prayed and prayed and prayed_ -

"I don't remember."

Foster nods, lacing their fingers together.

Sam doesn't have nightmares that night.

 **December 22, 1900- VA**  
Sam has four tattoos.

The mayflowers in the hollow of her hip done in stark black ink. The golden lion sprawled over her back. There's a crescent moon on her side, just above where one of the whip-scars trails off her back and curls up towards her heart. There's a rune in steel gray above her ankle.

Over her ribs, there should have been another tattoo, but there isn't.  
\------  
Foster taps her ribs. "What happened to your cross?"

The mayflowers had been her first tattoo, the cross had been her second.

It'd barely been bigger than the one she wore around her neck.

It had taken a decade of neglecting it for it to fully fade, and the day the last of the ink had disappeared she had gone to Brooke and they had cracked open the good wine to celebrate. Adam hadn't been able to hide his relief when she told him it was gone.

She shrugs. "I didn't want it anymore."

Foster trails his fingers up to the hollow of her throat. "What about this cross?"

 _Her necklace_.

Sam swallows. "It's somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic."

That was what Connie told her they'd done with it. She hadn't told her much of what became of the man, except that he was dead. Brooke had told her how one night when Sam woke up screaming and pleading and coped by chainsmoking with shaking hands. She'd told her about the blood, the box of trophies, and how they'd flung them into the ocean off the Connecticut coast.

Foster blinks, clearly surprised.

She thinks of the first cross she'd worn, the one that dangled around Foster's neck now. She'd always thought he'd thrown it away back when their relationship had soured, but when he'd taken off his shirt on Halloween it had still been there.

She tugs on the chain now, gently, knowing how old it is. "Why do you still wear yours?"

"Because it's lucky." He looks away from her eyes. "You gave it to me."

The second cross had been given to her by Alfred to replace the one she gave to Foster. He'd given it to her for her second statehood anniversary. Thirty-two years later, it had been stolen with her trust and self-respect.

"I'm not lucky."

Foster shrugs.

It would take the truth to change his mind, and Sam isn't ready to give that up just yet.

He reaches over to snag the chain of her star pendant off his nightstand and holds it up.

"What's this from?" He'd slipped her star over her head last night and set it on his nightstand, saying she'd strangle herself if she slept in it.

His change of subject isn't subtle at all, but she goes with it. "Connie. She charmed it."

Foster pokes at like it might burn him. "With what?"

"She put protection charms on it. The iron is supposed to restrict magic and the emerald is meant for balance and truth."

Foster hands the star so she can fasten it back around her neck.

His fingers brush over the place where there was once a cross tattoo and he opens his mouth to say something- to ask another question.

Sam doesn't want to talk about crosses anymore. She kisses him, and then kisses him again until he stops asking questions.

 **July 3, 1901- VA**  
Foster isn't sure what they are, or what he's doing, or what's even happening at this point.

Occasionally, they sleep together, and sometimes they just-sleep together, and there is a lot of kissing. Sometimes, there is pre or post meeting coffee (and cake, on one memorable occasion), and sometimes when they're in the same place, Sam will join him for dinner. But he doesn't say those three words because it feels rushed, somehow.  
\------  
"What are we?"

Sam stops braiding her hair to look at him. "What?"

Foster picks at his cuticles. "Like, are we dating or what?"

Sam smacks away his hand. "Stop that, you'll make them bleed."

"Sam."

She bites her lip. "I guess."

Foster grins at her.

 **September 16, 1901- Seattle, WA**  
Foster startles when Evangeline sits down across from him.

"So, you and Sam. Are you together, yes or no?"

It's a giveaway when his eyes flicker to where Sam is sleeping with her head pillowed on her arms down by Connie.

Evangeline grins. "Excellent. I just won three bets."

Foster pities whichever state betted against her. It should be common sense to never bet against Evangeline, Nate, or Sera.

 **April 3, 1902- Augusta, ME**  
The only reason Foster finds out about the nightmares is because he can't sleep.   
\------  
Sam always goes still when she has nightmares, and she'll stay still unless she's touched.

Touch seems to be the thing that pushes her over the edge, and therefore it was one of the earliest things deemed off limits when she had dated Adrien.

Salem had been there before Adrien, and had learned from experience. After all, she used to sleep by a hockey stick for a few years. Sam had only hit him once, but it'd been enough that he'd never startled her awake again.

In the dream, Sam is helpless when hands tangle into her hair and slam her head into the wall, when teeth bite into her shoulder, when heavy weight pins her to the ground.

When she wakes up, Foster is holding his eye where she hit him when he touched her.

 **April 4, 1902- Augusta, ME**  
Sam keeps looking at his black eye with the guiltiest expression and apologizing.

Foster hates it.

He'd seen the way Sam had looked when she'd woken up.

She'd looked  _terrified_.

That hadn't been a state reliving a battle, that had been something so much worse.

 **September 13, 1902- Hartford, CT**  
Foster pays attention and slowly starts to put the puzzle pieces together.

Sam's thing about her drinks- how carefully she watches them.

Salem's protectiveness.

Jackson and his underhanded comments.

The crosses.

The nightmares.

It all seems so painfully obvious when he looks back, but he needs confirmation.

He asks Connie, because if anyone knew it would be her.

Connie seems to age in that moment as devastation spreads over her face, and Foster knows he's right.

 **September 28, 1902- Boston, MA**  
Foster is waiting on her doorstep when she comes back from getting groceries, and Sam grins at him.

"Hey, grab my keys."

He takes half her bags in silence and hands over her keys, and Sam hums as she unlocks the door.

She dumps the bags on the kitchen counter and turns to kiss Foster.

He stops her with a gentle hand on her shoulder and she just  _knows_  that he knows from the look he's giving her.

He's looking at her like she's a crime scene.

_And suddenly she's a fifteen-year-old girl in shock, lying on the floor, and-_

_No. No panic attacks. Breathe._

Sam steps away. "Who told you?" Her voice cracks and she was supposed to be done with this.

"Sam-"

" _Who told you?_ "

Foster shuts his eyes as her voice cracks again. It hurts,  _physically_. "I figured it out and then asked Connie. She didn't tell me, but her reaction was enough."

That's something at least. That her sister hadn't told her secret. She hits against the counter and sinks down to the floor. Foster drops to his knees in front of her.

Sam's shoulders shake as she suppresses tears. Foster pulls her closer until she's practically in his lap with her head buried in the crook of his neck.

And he holds her as she cries.

 **September 29, 1902- Boston, MA**  
"Do you want to talk about it?"

Sam shuts the drawer a little too hard. "Talk about what?"

"About how you're a-"

Sam whirls, eyes hard. "I swear, you say victim and I will walk out that door and I will not come back."

"Survivor." Foster finishes.

Sam's hand shakes and she closes her eyes.

"One question. You get one question." She bites out.

He doesn't even hesitate. "What should I never ever do? Like, what would make you flashback?"

Sam's eyes are flat when she looks at him. "That was two."

Foster shrugs. "They're the same question."

Sam leans back into the dresser and stares at a point on the wall. "Don't pull my hair."

Foster nods. "Alright. That's all?"

She hesitates. "Don't pin me down."

"Okay." He opens his arms, hoping Sam would let him hold her.

She does, laying her head on his shoulder.

 **October 31, 1902- New Orleans, LA**  
Sam's witch hat is halfway to falling off when she sits down beside him.

"Why is this okay?" Foster blurts out without thinking, proof that the punch had been spiked, probably by multiple states.

Sam leans against his shoulder, and for a moment he thinks that she didn't understand what he was asking. "Because out of all the questions you could have asked- when, where, who- you asked what not to do."

 **June 17, 1903- Augusta, ME**  
Sam gives him pieces of the story gradually, until finally, one day, she just tells him the entire thing.

 **November 1, 1903- Boston, MA**  
Sam is wearing a knitted sweater she stole last time she was over, reading Sherlock Holmes and running her fingers through Foster's hair and he is so in love with her it almost hurts.

He props himself up on his elbows. "Sam?"

She moves the book to look at him.

"I love you. You don't have to say it back now, but I wanted you to know."

Sam drops the book off the couch and sits up to kiss him.

 **December 25, 1903- VA**  
Foster is looking at the scarf Cecilia sent when Sam nudges him to get his attention.

"I love you too."

He just blinks at her in shock for a minute before he's grinning.   
  
  
  
  
  


(the end)


End file.
